


Opinions

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, One Shot, compared with post-Squip Jeremy and Michael, descriptions of Jeremy and Michael as tiny children, post squip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 13:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20547113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jeremy is weird about opinions after everything with the Squip.  In all fairness, Michael also went through a weird about opinions phase.





	Opinions

Jeremy is weird about opinions after the Squip. Most of the time he’s got more of them than he ever has before, or at least he’s more willing to voice them. At other times, though, when the Squip’s getting too loud and Jeremy is shutting down but trying to hide it, one of the easiest ways to check in with him is to ask him something innocuous— his favorite movie, or what he wants to eat on his pizza, or whether he prefers cats or dogs. If he can’t or won’t answer, he’s struggling.

That’s not to say that Michael knows exactly what to do when Jeremy’s struggling, especially when it’s the kinda stealth struggling where he smiles at the right times, makes the right noises in conversation, and will even pick up a video game controller and play if instructed to do so. So Michael settles for sticking around. He settles for watching.

“You’re the one who taught me what an opinion was, pretty much,” Michael comments one day, when Jeremy just isn’t functioning on the making choices front. They’re playing Zelda, and things are fine(ish), but every attempt to get Jeremy to make a decision is bringing up a 404 error message.

“I thought that was your moms,” Jeremy answers.

“It was a team effort.”

Jeremy looks amused, just like he’s supposed to. He goes back to the game they’re playing.

When Michael was four years old, just months after meeting Jeremy, he and Jeremy got into their first fight. A Spanish teacher had come to their preschool class, and tried to teach them the colors en español, a lesson which Michael had screamed and cried through because his favorite color was red, and he didn’t want to learn the other colors, just red, red and red. Then, Jeremy had poured salt in the wound by saying that he liked blue, and Michael had just lost it, weeping bitterly at the unfairness of the universe until his eyes ached and his voice was hoarse. It might’ve been the end of their friendship. It might’ve been the end of the world. It’d taken days for Michael’s moms to get him to understand that it was okay for different people to like different colors, and over the next couple years they’d had to repeat the lesson with a lot of topics, like whether or not it was okay to like pickles. It was a matter of some things being facts (one plus one always equaled two) and other things being thoughts (Q wasn’t always a bad letter, and getting into heated arguments the letters of the alphabet with mega weird anyway).

Aside from his friendship with Jeremy (and an admittedly enduring fondness of the color red), Michael’s really different at sixteen than he was at four. That’s how things are meant to work. Jeremy’s changed a lot too. Michael has known Jeremy for such a long time, and they’ve grown together through so many changes.

“Let’s switch to Mario,” Michael suggests.

“Sounds good,” Jeremy agrees. Another smile.

“Which one do you think is best?”

Jeremy’s shoulders tighten, and he doesn’t answer.

“I’m gonna go with three,” Michael says.

Jeremy nods, relieved.

Michael and Jeremy have grown together through a lot. This is just another thing for them to figure out.


End file.
